This invention relates to a vibratory conveyor for advancing fragile articles such as baked goods. The conveyor apparatus is of the type which has at least one conveyor trough and a drive mechanism for imparting vibration thereto. Such an apparatus is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,522. The apparatus disclosed therein has conveyor troughs made of stainless steel and is particularly adapted for transporting biscuit-like baked goods (cookies, crackers and the like). It has been found, however, that in the conventional vibratory conveyors the conveying rate at different locations along the trough length is not constant, particularly in case of high outputs.
Extended tests have shown that the non-uniformity in the conveying rate (output) is caused by the bending oscillations of the conveyor troughs. Such bending oscillations are superposed on the combined horizontal and vertical vibrations which are imparted to the trough by the oscillating drive. By virtue of such a superposition, the resulting oscillation of the conveyor trough is non-uniform as viewed along the trough length so that the rate of conveyance too, fluctuates as viewed along the trough length.